Intro

Problem

Despite the many health benefits such as a boosted immune system and improved self-esteem and mental health, many young adults shy away from physical activities. Such sedentary behaviors may also follow them to elder hood, potentially allowing many health problems to surface. Therefore, this project aims elucidate some possible recommendations which may encourage young adults to develop a long-term habit of participating in physical activity, to improve their overall health and reduce their risk of illnesses.

Outcome

Obtain recommendations which address common barriers to physical activities as expressed by young adults.

These recommendations would give young adults greater motivation to take the first step in developing a healthy habit of exercising.

Timeline

Exploration

Barriers Data

To start off, we first take a look at the barriers to exercising and how to overcome them. This will give us a better sensing for the gap that exists between those who do exercise and those who do not exercise.

Across all age ranges, the top 5 barriers to engage in physical exercise for people are :

  1. Busy performing other activities
  2. Busy working over time
  3. The need to care for an elderly or children
  4. Scared to go out
  5. Health unsuitable

It is to be noted that a big portion of respondents in the 20-59 year old age group sees Busy overtime as a the main reason which cause them to not exercise as compared the general population which are busy performing other activities and taking care of children/elderly.

Comments: We take a look at fig ××. Among the barriers, people who are busy overtime, caring for elderly/child, health unsuitable or too old may be unable to exercise, as they should very well prioritize such activities over exercising. However, there is a sizable proportion of respondents who are scared to go out, have no motivation, have no one to play with and/or too stressed. These people may be more receptive, with proper facilities and encouragement.

Motivation Data

After exploring why some people are averse to exercising, we take a look at the reasons why people exercise. This could allow us to form some insights on how to encourage others in exercising and close the gap between the two groups.

Across all age ranges, the top 5 motivations for people who engage in physical exercise are :

  1. Better health
  2. Feel good
  3. Mental health
  4. Interest
  5. Make up for sitting too much

It is to be noted that 13-24 year old age group takes interest as a stronger motivating factor to exercise as compared to other age groups which places a higher priority on better health.

Comments: XXXX

Top Sports Data

We now look at which sports are the most popular. Current top sports for certain groups may give us an idea on the type of sports which these groups may pick up more easily.

Overall, top 5 sports are:

  1. Walking
  2. Jogging/Running
  3. Swimming
  4. Cycling
  5. Calisthenics

Females’ top exercise in 2021 is walking with 42% of females walk. In contrast, the 2nd most performed exercise is only performed by 24% of the sample. There is a gap of 18%. This wide gap between the top exercise and second most performed exercise is not seen in men, with only a gap of 4% in 2021.

Males’ prefer jogging/running to walking while females prefer otherwise. There are many repeated sport in the top 10 of males and females.

Overall, it seems that exercises that do not require specific equipment or facilities are more popular.

A shocking result to note is the higher percentage of ladies who perform calisthenics.

ActiveSG Profile Dataset

Since the above analysis is very useful in helping us form our recommendations, we take a closer look at more data, provided by ActiveSG. This gives us a deeper understanding of the profiles within the sporting community.

Firstly, did some dashboard

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/justin.cheong/viz/ActiveSGprofile/Dashboard1?publish=yes

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/justin.cheong/viz/ActiveSGprofile2/Dashboard2?publish=yes

This dataset shows the breakdown of profiles who enter ActiveSG facilities (people who do exercise in ActiveSG facilities)

ActiveSG sports analysis

Look at some numbers after grasping the overall

ActiveSG sports time analysis

Realize that time analysis would be really useful…

Results and conclusion

Based on the visualisations above, it is clear that it is not a simple task to encourage the youths to exercise. It seems that for exercises that appeal to similar demographics tend to have similar patronage. Perhaps this could be an avenue to promote exercising.

For example: 1. Yoga and pilates could be promoted as a pre-work or post-work activity for friends to engage in. 2. Football seem to appeal to mainly children and youths, possibly due to the heat and the social aspect of the sport. 3. A very consistent patronage of gyms throughout the day may be an indicator that gyms can be a good place for people to start their fitness journeys, since it is accessible for people across all the age ranges. However, the smaller proportion of females may indicate the need for more inclusive spaces.

Despite this, there is a greater need to address the barriers to exercising through promoting the needs of people, which tend to deviate among age groups. Some emphasis can also be placed to address the problems which people face, such as the large proportion of people which are not exercising due to their busy schedules. Perhaps more support can be given to companies to encourage healthy working habbits in the office.

Future Work

Although this visualization could be a starting point for our research, more work is needed to gather more data. For example, ladies may choose to exercise at Virgin Active or other private gyms which may appeal more to them. Further work could also be done in the use of geospatial data to elucidate the differences between regions.